(Dis) appearance of the content I

Let us imagine the basic opposition between art and reality as a tennis table. The ball (i.e. the artwork) moves back and forth between both ends and flows over the dividing line of the fields. Movement is inevitable, as well as endless, in the differences, tactics, strategies, possibilities of the game, which today is rather institutional. And while logic tells us the artist should be the player in this scheme, Kiril Kuzmanov plays simultaneously on both sides of the table. His work The (Dis)appearance of the Content, 2011, is a site-specific intervention in the space of 0gms Gallery and a comment on both the notion of an artwork and the very idea of the gallery as a platform for communication with the viewer.

The artist removes the bottom side of the drawer, where 0gms gallery is located and the bottomlessness of the drawer represents an act of facing the reality an empty floor. In the space vacated below in the cabinet, other pieces extraneous to the exhibition (non-works) appear quite unexpectedly. The perspective has changed, leaving us in doubt as to how far the gallery spreads, and where the drawer actually begins. Doubt in itself serves as “material” for the work, a desire to destabilise the principal concept by creating a simultaneity of art and reality and bringing together basic oppositions that are involved in the formation of “contents” such as yes and no, present and absent, visible and invisible.

The artist, who predominantly works in the field of sculpture, is interested in the form, transforming the gallery space of 0gms into a frame. On the other hand, however, the work is related to his site-specific projects, in which by small interventions, Kiril Kuzmanov intends to create space for possibilities for the things to look and to be perceived differently.